Batman: The Animated Series- The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy

 "Do you know what it means?"

"Don't you?"

At last the Commissioner has come up with the Bat Signal, fairly late in the game. And I love how Batman gently notes the implausibility of such a thing being allowed!

Otherwise, though... well, the twist at the end was clever, but I wasn't all that impressed with this one. We have a villain, Josiah Wormwood, whose thing is to commit crimes via elaborate and unrealistically elaborate death-traps, much like  those we saw in the '60s TV series. Neither he nor "Baron" is particularly engaging or interesting. Indeed, the best thing in this episode may be the interaction between the Batman and Commissioner Gordon.

We get a Perils of Pauline style damsel in distress about to be run over by a train who turns out to be a hologram, though: I liked the subversion of this trope. But otherwise, a rather forgettable episode.

And quicksand doesn't actually do that in real life!

Robin of Sherwood: The King's Fool

 "We're his pets. The wolves clever Richard trapped and tamed."

I'm impressed. For the second episode in the row we riff on a traditional tale, this time the one where King Richard returns and pardons the outlaws and, indeed, at firat it appears that this is happening. The fact that this is the last episode of the series makes it feel plausible, and John Rhys Davies certainly has presence and charisma as King Richard- at once larger-than-life and utterly believable, not an easy combination.

Yet all, as ever, is not as it seems, and the episode gives us a fascinating meditation on the ethics of compromise versus not selling out... and comes down firmly on the side of the latter. If this episode were a band, it would refuse to join a major label or learn a fourth chord, and rightly so.

Robin, blinded by hope, is the last to see Richard for who he truly is: a warlord, who knows and wants only war. A king who spends little time in England and sees it only as a cash cow for his dynastic wars, wars in which he wishes to involve the merry men. Oh, it may seem at first that Robin has royal favour and the Sheriff does not, but the natural order soon reasserts itself.

The ending, too, is fascinating. Gisburne, surely, is dead. And at first, by the evocative surroundings of a stone circle (let us gloss over the fact that there are none in or near Nottinghamshire), it seems that Marian does too... yet, at the last we have the atmospheric, vaguely Celtic magic of Herne the Hunter. Let us not think too hard about the provenance of these myths, shall we?

A triumphant ending to a promising first season. I'll shortly be resuming with series two, but first I'll be doing something else in this "slot"...

I, Clavdivs: Zeus, By Jove

"Don't go in there..."

In a sense this episode just goes to show an increasing sense of depravity in Julio-Claudia Rome, as Tiberius’ depravity and tyranny is followed by something even worse- a madman emperor who considers himself a god. Yet there’s a certain loss of the subtleties of character here as things go very Grand Guignol. The tone becomes less subtle and, although there are superbly written character moments such as Antonia’s commentary on all the depravities leading to her blunt, matter-of-fact suicide.

I’ve never read Suetonius but I understand Graves’ two novels were a toned down version of the garish details found in The Twelve Caesars. But I understand historians tend to view all this as much exaggerated, and there’s a view that Caligula may have been a bit of a troll, yes, but perfectly rational. That’s not what we see here. When he recovers from his coma he tells the sycophant who promised to give his life if Cæsar may be saved to carry out his promise. He openly cavorts with his sister Drusilla. He has his nephew be headed because of an annoying cough.He declares himself a god. And then, of course, there’s the shocking ending. It’s all very entertaining spectacle but compared to all the previous episodes it’s very one note, superlative though John Hurt is.

Also worth singling out is John Rhys Davis who, while being an utter wanker in real life, does an excellent job as Macro, an ambitious man who has gambled his own future on Caligula and worries about the nature of the horse he’s shackles himself to. And, of course, Margaret Tyzack owns the episode with her blunt words to Claudius just before her suicide. Claudius, as she says, survives everything.

I, Clavdivs: Reign of Terror

“Do you know him personally?”

“No, but I have slept with his wife several times.”

This time I, Clavdivs channels the Ben Jonson play Sejanus His Fall, and does it much better. This is telly of the very first rank, and a classic study in tyranny.

We begin with Sejanus’ control over Rome deepened and Tiberius, with his mother and son dead, utterly oblivious to his own manipulation. He is being pushed further and further to remove potential threats to Sejanus’ rise- Aggripina is banished to the island where Julia was exiled with a similar fate for her eldest son, and when she refuses Tiberius’ sexual advances she is flogged. Her second son is arrested and starved in his cell, with only his depravity and closeness to Tiberius saving her theirs son Caligula- shown as delightfully decadent throughout the episode- from a similar fate, and Sejanus has plans for him too. This, Livilla’s affair with Sejanus, and Claudius’ distance from his own wife, lead Antonia to decry the modern world in reactionary style- but she has a definite point.

Tiberius, though, forbids Sejanus from marrying Livilla, instead suggesting he marries her daughter Helen, to which Livilla reacts with predictable fury, driving a wedge between them. This is the first crack in Sejanus’ armour. His tyranny continues unabated but the cracks widen, and Antonia discovers more and more, including that Livilla is poisoning her own daughter out of jealousy. And it is Antonia who manages to warn Tiberius over in Capri, behind Sejanus’ back.

In a wonderfully perverse scene, it is Caligula who suggests to a suddenly frightened emperor that he can use the ambition of Sejanus’ deputy Macro to get rid of him, and talk of the ensuing purge becomes instantly horrifying. We aren’t shown much other than the bodies, but what we do see and hear is sickening. Senators quietly flee the senate as Sejanus is denounced. And when a soldier complains to Macro about killing Sejanus’ children, with the girl being a virgin, he is simply told to “Make sure she’s not a virgin when you kill her”. We see Sejanus’ fatal stabbing from his own POV in a nice piece of camera work, the last thing he hears being that his children are dead. He is a monster, yet he is human, and the script allows us to feel for him.

This is, once again, superlative, and I’m already running out of ways to say that. Interestingly, Claudius’ wife, Sejanus’ sister, begs Claudius to protect her and, although he is busy expressing his revulsion at what is happening, he refuses. She survives in the end, but we are reminded that Claudius, while saner than his relatives, is no saint.

The Living Daylights (1987)

"We've nothing to declare!"

Before I go on to praise this splendid film... I may get one last blog post out tomorrow on the train- we will see- but after that there won't be anything more until after my big exam on Tuesday 3rd May. It's a week of hardcore revision for me to look forward to. Still, expect a flurry of new blog posts in the couple of days after the exam, probably.

Anyway, I loved The Living Daylights even if it didn't feel much like a Bond film when watched in context. It's a strange thing to say for a series of spy films, but Bond hadn't done a proper Cold War thriller before and only now, in 1987, the very last opportunity there would ever be, do we get one. And yes, I know we have an American chief baddie as a fig leaf so they can deny that this is a straight ahead Cold War spy film with the Russians as the baddies so as not to offend the real world USSR but, well, they're fooling nobody.

And so we have a tale of defections, crappy police cars, secret police arresting pretty girls in the exotic surroundings of, er, Bratislava, and that classically Cold War locale that is Vienna and a Ferris Wheel that immediately evokes The Third Man. Mind you, nothing has dated quite as much as showing the Afghan Mujahideen as the good guys. I'm no useful idiot, far from it, but Najibullah (not a nice man but no one deserves to die like that) was much better for Afghanistan than what came after.

Timothy Dalton... let's actually mention him, shall we? He's obviously a fine actor, easily the best so far, far more technically competent and nuanced in his portrayal than Connery or Moore. I like him. And yet... he's genuinely charismatic, yes, but less so than either of the two aforementioned, both of whom oozed it, and for me he doesn't quite convince as a ladies' man- well, womaniser. He's too sensitive. Still, a promising debut. 

Maryam d'Abo makes a good, and refreshing Bon-bimboesque, Bond girl, and we get good performances from John Rhys-Davies, Art Malik and the ever-reliable Desmond Llewelyn, in a good film for the gadgets.

This is the best film of the '80s so far, let down only by a mildly disappointing theme song from a-Ha, even if it isn't as awful as Shirley Manson of Garbage notoriously said it is. After the problems of A View to a Kill we now have a younger Bond and a witty script, and as a result there's not a lot wrong.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

"Indiana? We called the dog Indiana!"

And so we come to the last and easily the best of the original trilogy. And, given the high quality of the other two films, that's a bloody big achievement.

So why is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade so bloody good? Well, it's partly because they've clearly thought long and hard about what worked best in the other two films, and they've rightly decided that Raiders of the Lost Ark is worth mining for the good stuff. So Marcus is back. So is Sallah. So, most importantly, are the Nazis. You've got to have Nazis.

There's also an outstanding cast. Ice tagged a few below, but there wasn't room for the likes of Alexei Sayle, Vernon Dobtceff, an uncredited Michael Sheard as Hitler or even River Phoenix as the young Indy. But the real casting coup is, of course, the ever-charismatic Sean Connery as Dr Henry Jones, Senior. Connery is simply excellent here. So good, in fact, that he even condescends to not sound like he's from Edinburgh for once.

Said opening sequence, with young Indy and the train full of circus animals, is superb, and not only because it reminds me of the contemporary 8 bit computer game. It even attempts to explain the origin of Indy's fear of snakes, but it wisely doesn't reveal too much about his mysterious father who, indeed, is held back until just the right moment.

The plot itself is very Raiders of the Lost Ark without being in any way too slavishly similar. And what can outdo the Ark of the Covenant but the Holy Grail? 

As per the previous film we get a series of outstanding set pieces- I love the airship- but the outstanding chemistry between Harrison Ford and Connery adds so much more. Connery is having great fun with a superb character and his presence pushes Ford to ever greater heights: this is one of the most entertaining cinematic double acts ever. 

And then we come to the climax. The "invisible" bridge falls just short of the supernatural, but Donovan's gruesome death at imbibing the false Grail is delightfully gruesome, and the whole climax is deeply satisfying which, er, sounds a bit ruder than intended.

Possibly one of the greatest adventure films ever. Personally I dread to think just how many times I've seen it.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

"Snakes! Why does it have to be snakes?"

This film still feels fresh thirty years later: not bad for a movie based on the movie serials of the '30s and '40s. What makes it work is that the action never stops, with set piece piled on to exciting set piece and even the exposition scenes being made dramatic. On top of that you have Harrison Ford being, well, himself, Ronald Lacey as the perfect Gestapo baddie and loads of money obviously spent. This is a superb film.

I'm sure many archaeologists would raise an eyebrow at this somewhat glamorous depiction of what they do for a living, of course. Indy is clearly shown to be an academic. Others would raise eyebrows at the spiders, snakes and booby traps galore. The more churlish of us may well raise an eyebrow at the made up mythology if what's supposed to have happened to the Ark, particularly Ethiopians. Personally my own eyebrow is raised a little at the idea of Nazis being so obsessed with such a very Jewish artifact- that must have been awkward for them.

We have all sorts of Indiana Jones tropes here from the start- travelling by map (copyright The Muppets), the action-packed standalone opening sequence and Indy just shoring that bloke who waves a fancy sword at him. It's a brilliant start to s brilliant series. If you haven't seen this, where have you been?

Except, er, Indy doesn't actually accomplish anything, does he? The Ark would have blown up the Nazis whatever happened. Still, at least he gets a nice little Egyptian holiday with some snake-related activities.